2009 Assessment

This peer-reviewed country report includes:

Integrity Indicators Scorecard: Scores, scoring criteria, commentary, references, and peer review perspectives for more than 300 Integrity Indicators.

Reporter's Notebook: An on-the-ground look at corruption and integrity from a leading local journalist.

Corruption Timeline: Ten years of political context to today's corruption and integrity issues.

Lebanon's signing of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption in October 2008 has pushed the government to begin to create a network of anti-corruption oversight bodies. Draft legislation for a freedom of information act, an anti-corruption agency, and an Ombudsman's office are all currently awaiting legislative debate and approval. The newly established election monitoring agency has received positive reviews from the European Union, with a related recommendation that the agency's powers to prosecute be expanded in the future. The agency is currently evaluating campaign expenditures by individual candidates from the 2008 elections based on new, but admittedly weak, political financing regulations. Despite these potential gains, Lebanon still has sizable gaps in its governance framework. There are no whistle-blower protections for private or public officials and citizen access to government documents is nearly impossible without a freedom of information law. This has led to major problems in government contracting, where the website that is supposed to advertise government tenders is broken and only "25% of contracts are awarded based on competitive bidding." There are also no conflicts of interest regulations for elected officials; legislators are known to keep their private sector jobs while in office.